Category : Knife Safety

In the United States, 88% of people eat turkey on Thanksgiving. That leaves a lot of room for hand injuries! It’s not uncommon to accidentally cut yourself while carving a turkey or other meats. Unfortunately, carving injuries can be serious, sometimes involving amputation. Here’s how you can safely carve a turkey this Thanksgiving:

Serious hand injuries can occur during daily activities such as preparing food. Many hand injuries can be prevented with simple adjustments to routines. In preparation for the upcoming fall cooking season, please consider some safe, simple adjustments to your own routine in cutting various food items to prevent knife slips, which can cause injuries to the tendons or the nerves in your hand.

Mangoes

This delicious, yet slippery fruit can be a challenge when it comes to cutting and preparing for serving. The danger arises from removing the outside peel of the fruit. Once this is removed, the fruit center is extremely juicy and becomes difficult to hold. The fruit is also oval-shaped, difficult to place on a cutting board and has a large pit in the center.

Here’s a safe method for preparing mangoes:

Keep the peel intact! Instead, stand the mango on a cutting board with stem side down and cut mango into two large pieces from either side of the pit. Be sure to cut toward a cutting board or solid surface and not the palm of your hand.

Taking the two large pieces with peel side on cutting board, you can use a paring knife to cut cubes or slices of the mango, being sure not to cut through the peel. Again, be certain you are cutting toward a hard surface and not your hand.

Once all your cuts are made, you can begin to peel away the skin of the mango by turning the skin inside out OR you can use a spoon (not anything sharp) and scoop the cut pieces away from the skin of the mango.

We are aware that we should exercise caution to prevent job-related injuries at work. However, many injuries happen at home, especially in the kitchen. Hand injuries are some of the worst kind. Cut hand tendons and ligaments are not only painful, but extremely hard to restore through surgery.

Our hands are our “money makers.” Without their proper use, life is much more difficult. Not only at work, but when at home, too, we should take the proper precautions whenever performing a task that involves a blade (like cutting, chopping, or peeling) – even if the task does not seem “dangerous.” Here’s a great video showing some basic kitchen knife techniques – the cross chop and the rock chop.

Recently, attention has been drawn to the injury known as “avocado hand.” This is what surgeons and doctors call hands that have been lacerated by a knife while slicing an avocado. Click HERE to watch a video on how to prevent “avocado hand.” Instead of holding the avocado with your bare hand, you can use a damp towel or a cutting board to slice the avocado and remove the pit.

Avocados may seem harmless, but if you’ve ever peeled and cut one, you know they can be more than a little troublesome. They’re slippery, they’re oddly shaped, and they have that annoying pit in the middle that rarely slips out as easily as you’d like.

These characteristics have earned the avocado a reputation as one of the most dangerous foods to cut. Just recently, the wife of a colleague here at The New York Times was slicing an avocado when she suffered a cut so deep she had to be taken to the emergency room.

Medical professionals and hospitals in the United States don’t track kitchen injuries by ingredient, but anecdotally, doctors say they see a number of avocado-related cooking injuries annually — enough to notice.

The HandCare Blog is managed by the American Society for Surgery of the Hand, the oldest and most prestigious medical specialty society dedicated to the hand and upper extremity. Visit www.HandCare.org for more information about conditions, injuries and treatment of the hand, arm, elbow and shoulder.